


Poison in Sweet Wine

by ParadifeLoft



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Celebrimbor is an awkward and needs to make sure he can keep his thoughts to himself, Curufin exploits the emotions of just about everybody around him, Finrod is distractable and worried, M/M, Nargothrond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 14:43:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1133868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadifeLoft/pseuds/ParadifeLoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curufin's interpersonal machinations have unexpected result; Celebrimbor is more perceptive than he lets on. Finrod deals with the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poison in Sweet Wine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [atarinke](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=atarinke).



> Happy Giftmas, Atarinke! I do so hope this is something like what you were expecting from the prompt - certain characters have a tendency to be stubborn little things despite one's best efforts o__o I hope the start of the year has been lovely for you, and I'm very glad to produce something nice for you in return for all the beautiful art you've graced our fandom with :)

Finrod was rather astounded, really, by the fact that he'd managed to continue thinking of his cousin earlier in the morning, clad in nothing but a dressing gown and a haughty look, all throughout his day and this council meeting.

This council meeting where said cousin sat not two seats over from him.

This council meeting where an overview of current crafting business, both military and artistic, was being given to them by said cousin's _son_.

And yet even as Celebrimbor spoke, words flowing from halting one moment to a rushing torrent the next; eyes and hands apt to wander all throughout the space before him - what kept invading his mind was the image of Curufin, pale and languourous, silken black hair loose over a silken grey robe (tiny stitches at the collar and hems in rosewood and black), spread unselfconsciously over the top of Finrod's bed and watching him prepare for the day.

He had not even smirked overtly; merely watched him intently from under lowered lids, with perhaps the faintest hint of amusement in his eyes. Enough that Finrod could feel a slight flush creeping from his hairline when he exposed chest and back and neck, and the certain tapestry of marks they presented, before pulling undertunic and robe closed before them.

Lord Guilin put up a question as to the standardisation of ore quality and heating temperature across the many individuals and forges who created arms for the soldiers and wardens; Celebrimbor launched into another monologue. Finrod managed, for most of the time, to listen with appropriate intentness as befit the king.

And then the questions had concluded (Celebrimbor finishing his speech with awkward abruptness, drawing himself up and twisting his fingers together), and Finrod stood, his lords following, while he spoke the formal dismissal to them by listless rote, thoughts elsewhere.

Curufin merely stood arranging his papers as the other lords filed out of the chamber in a bustle of colourful robes and glinting lamplight off jewels, no hint of his earlier indolence in the sharpness beneath his neatly efficient movements, or in his tightly woven braids and tightly tailored robes. "Tyelperinquar, say thank you to your cousin," he murmured, when the chamber was otherwise empty. He did not lift his eyes from his work.

Celebrimbor looked to him, then to Finrod, and dropped his hands to his sides as his head inclined in a small bow. "You have my thanks for allowing this audience, my lord."

"Indeed," said Curufin, gaze more toward Finrod than to his son. "I'd not have bothered, and simply answered the other lords' questions myself, however - "

"Celebrimbor seems much more involved in the daily operations of the smithies we commission from than you have been of late," Finrod agreed. He could see a delinquent smudge of black soot still creeping from beneath the boy's sleeve.

A raised eyebrow came from Curufin, and gave Finrod reason to momentarily avert his gaze, to the table, the carvings upon it and the chairs, in the form of a slight thread of heat through his stomach. "Surely I hope you mean no displeasure by that," Curufinasked, archly. Finrod thought of those eyebrows drawn together in pleasure; the calm control his displayed pulled to fraying whimpers. "The private forge, the freedom to take whichever commissions I choose; I recall these being _your_ gifts to me, not anything I'd petitioned for or that you'd granted grudgingly."

"Of course they were," answered Finrod, almost dismissively. "I was hardly trying to say otherwise." Though perhaps better if they had been given grudgingly, or not at all - no, he did not mean that. But the memory of what that seclusion from others' eyes could allow, melded the foundations of both impulses until they were a tangle.

"Hmm." Curufin picked up his papers from the table. "You don't look entirely well, if I might mention. Tyelperinquar and I had been intending on a pot of tea after this meeting - you are invited to join us, if you would like."

Finrod saw Celebrimbor look up, at that comment, as if mildly surprised. But it would be nice to spend time with him, even if briefly, wouldn't it? And perhaps a distraction of a sort, even if in Curufin's company still, where his own chambers would not prove such.

"I would be pleased to," he answered.

In the corridor as they walked back to his cousin's chambers, he struck up a conversation with Celebrimbor as to the boy's recent projects of choice, and was treated to a monologue detailing more than he could ever think he wished to know regarding techniques for enchantment of metal and stone that lasted near until they reached Curufin's own rooms. Finrod smiled as he pushed open the door to let them inside.

"I hadn't realised he'd been so enchanted by the dwarven cities," Finrod remarked, with a nod at Celebrimbor. "He sounds like you, if you'd stop clamping down on your enthusiasm and speak freely the way you used to."

But Curufin only gave a slight frown. "Perhaps," he allowed cautiously, and then, "Tyelperinquar, start the water to boiling, if you will. And you shouldn't talk the king to boredom on your theories when you still at times make mistakes in your ordinary techniques."

Celebrimbor busied himself silently by the small fire already burning in the hearth; Curufin led Finrod in to sit as if he had not been here countless times before, near as comfortable with his cousin's chambers as his own. His hand lingered on Finrod's shoulder, warm and affecting, as he bade him sit. "It is not boredom," he replied, a slight chastisement half for Celebrimbor's benefit and half to rid himself of the prick of longing turning up again beneath his skin. "I am as interested in his words as yours."

His cousin gave a flick of his eyes and a long gaze at Finrod while he stepped back, not sitting himself. There was a certain coolness not present earlier; or perhaps he was only imagining things. "I doubt that," he said, before turning away to the fire to accompany his son, busying himself with the enameled box of tea leaves on the table beside the hearth.

The low conversation the pair made was inaudible to Finrod, though the crackle of the fire, the low rumble of water in the iron pot overhanging it, was not. He wondered if he should not send Celebrimbor another box of candied apricots, or a copy of one of his books he'd brought from Tirion on Telerin silverworking - the boy seemed rather withdrawn of late.

But then Finrod nearly jumped, tensing himself and drawing all his composure to keep from rather noticeably twitching, as he felt a sudden flood of several jumbled emotions all at once - and accompanying, heard from Curufin the several syllables of his name.

The emotion was not Curufin's, certainly not, but Celebrimbor's, as if he'd had never once even heard of the notion of guarding one's mind - for this was not, for all Finrod had the sense that it concerned him intimately, something the younger man had intended for anything but the privacy of his own mind. Finrod took a slow breath, looking away, and brushed the stray tumultuous thoughts from his own with not a slight amount of embarrassment, of the type that would come from catching another at some purpose they did not intend for any other's eyes. He hoped it would not show on his face.

Yet even as they had dissipated, Finrod's memory of the thoughts seemed to grow in clarity, separating each strand from one another - dismay, and worry, largely; some quiet shame, self-doubt. Anger - and words, the desire to say them even alongside a fear of what might result. _I do not like how you speak to the king ._

Finrod stiffened and paled slightly, and had not quite recovered when the pair returned from the hearth with three cups of the steaming, golden liquid.

To be sure, there were many times when Finrod himself did not appreciate how Curufin spoke to him… but such was a personal matter, a question of his cousin's tendency toward casual cruelty for his own amusement, of the tangled dynamics that had sprouted in an untamed bramble from their childhood and all that had happened since. The thought that another might have observed any fraction of the words, the _looks_ even that had passed between them - enough to make any judgement (and he had never known Celebrimbor to be overly hasty in his opinions of others; if anything the opposite)… It somewhat more than unnerved.

The brush of Curufin's hand against his own when he handed Finrod his cup of tea also did well to unnerve, as did the brief meeting of their eyes, from which he could do naught but recall the prior form of that expression that crossed Curufin's face, from the early morning. A slight shudder ran through him, and when it passed, Finrod pressed his barely-parted lips together as though it were a natural gesture.

He sipped at the steaming tea with a murmured thanks, and felt another stab of another's anguished regret.

Celebrimbor did not look at either of his companions in the room, but Finrod could hear his undirected thoughts with enough ease that his hand nearly slipped from his cup.

_You should not be so enamoured of him_.

Enamoured. Finrod was not -

The tea nearly scalded his tongue, a far cry from Curufin's unperturbed manner on the cushioned sofa across from him, but he gulped at it anyway, with as much subtlety as he could manage. Which, he wondered, should he be more worried by - that any private aspect of his thoughts regarding Curufin could apparently be discerned from his actions, no matter how erroneous the conclusion? or the conclusion itself, and how - _troubled_ , Celebrimbor must have been by it?

Curufin had invited him here that he might take some calm and enjoyment from the retirement from his usual quarters and business, yet this was nothing of the sort. And his first instinct would be to speak with Celebrimbor on the matter, but there was hardly a way to bring up the contents of thoughts he should not have heard in the first place, to say nothing of the subject matter and _how_ , precisely, he would even clarify his relationship, his frequent _activities_ with Curufin… Even now, he was loathe to outright lie.

"You've seemed troubled of late," Finrod finally settled on murmuring to Celebrimbor, breaking the silence as he blew across the top of his tea. "Is everything here to your liking, or is there something I might provide for you?"

Celebrimbor, however, only answered by switching his gaze to somewhere around Finrod's chin, and gave a polite statement that everything was perfectly lovely, and he need not trouble himself.

Curufin tapped a long finger against the rim of his cup, looked to Celebrimbor, and then to Finrod, and smiled. "Of course it is," he said. "Findaráto has been nothing but perfectly kind."


End file.
